Magic Cop

When a famous actor dies, I usually think, "oh, that's sad", and pretty much forget about it. When Lam Ching Ying died, I was truly sad, and this movie is one of the major reasons why. In Magic Cop, Lam brings his Taoist Priest persona out of the hopping vampire genre and into a modern setting. The film masterfully combines the best elements of films like Mr. Vampire and A Chinese Ghost Story with modern Hong Kong police action films.

Somebody tell me if this one ever comes out on DVD!

Lam Ching-Ying--Mr. Vampire himself--is Uncle Feng, a Hong Kong policeman who uses magic to battle an evil sorceress (Michiko Nishiwaki), head of a drug smuggling operation. When he's not fighting ghosts, vampires and ghouls, Feng tries to keep two randy cops from pestering his pretty niece Lin (Mei-Wah Wong).

Like so many supernatural Hong Kong movies, Magic Cop mixes comedy with its horror, and your level of enjoyment will depend on your sense of humour. I always struggle with Hong Kong comedy, so the gags, and the irritating comedic characters, did spoil the film somewhat for me. As far as I am concerned, Magic Cop works best when it forgets all about the silly slapstick and concentrates on delivering horror, magic and crazy action, which it thankfully does in the very entertaining finalé that ends the film on a high.

Magic Cop also features just a smidgen of kung fu, but I would have liked to have seen more, especially considering the presence of Nishiwaki and the amazing Billy Chow as the sorceress's servant.

Overall, I rate Magic Cop 6/10.

One of my all-time favorites. A Taoist priest/police officer in the modern day faces down a rash of hopping vampires, as well as a sorceress whose abilities match his own.

The action scenes in this movie are just a joy to watch. Ching-Ying Lam's character performs complex, incense-heavy banishment rituals in cartoonish flurries of ultra-precise acrobatics, drawing glyphs with melted wax and controlling wafts of smoke with elegant absurdity. It really has to be seen.

I don't want to spoil much. Incredibly entertaining, delightfully fun, and completely ridiculous in the best way. Absolutely worth a watch.

This is really a cool movie, Ching-Ying Lam as a hard-boiled cop with some magic skills in a 90s environment, this is what I wanted the from Ching-Ying after all the comedic roles he had as the taoist in the Mr Vampire films.

Now this film still got a fair amount of comedic scenes in it, but they're not as embarrassing as previous films, this film actually takes itself a bit more serious and it works so well. The Police Force fighting walking corpses, controlled by a Sorceress and for some reason the Police Force just happens to have a cop that can deal with magic too and it's the most perfect example of a fight between Masters of Magic.

The film still got a limited amount of budget, so take it for what it is. It's not the same gory makeup you see in Hollywood films like Terminator or Romero's Dead Series. But instead you have things you've never seen in films before, like the "fortune telling car chase" - you have to see it for yourself to see what I mean, but it's why I love watching films, when I see things like this, great and fantastic ideas I would never have thought of myself.

There were still some dumb, comedic scenes I felt dragged the coolness of the film down, especially from the two cop sidekicks, but Ching-Ying was just amazing. And for some reason all of these HK horror/comedies seems to have a rule to not be longer than 90 minutes, on one hand I would love to have more content, on another hand it's very packed with what it got, and the ending is more closed this time than previous films. I hope we'll see a release of this film on bluray, because I would love to see this again and for many others to discover this gem. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Lam Ching Ying is one of my favorite Chinese actors and when he passed on I was greatly saddened. Although I can't pick my favorite of the movies that he's done, as there are so many great ones, "Magic Cop" is up there. Lam once again plays his "Ghostbusting Taoist monk", but in this one he's a cop (but still Ghost-busting and Taoist) This film will bring a smile to your face, it's action packed & it holds up on multiple viewings. What's NOT to like?? Still not sold? The writer of this film also wrote suck greats as "In the line of Duty", the hilarious "God of Cookery", AND Shaolin Soccer.

My Grade: A

DVD Extras: Just the theatrical trailer & a short bio on Lam Ching Ying